7 Reasons America's Mental Health Insudstry is a Threat to Our Sanity

[Stuart G]

AlterNet....Bruce E. Levine

http://www.alternet.org/story/153634/7_reasons_america%27s_mental_health_industry_is_a_threat_to_our_sanity?akid=8095.37525._YvDYf&rd=1&t=1

Drug industry corruption, scientifically unreliable diagnoses and pseudoscientific research have compromised the values of the psychiatric profession.


January 2, 2012 |
Why do some of us become dissident mental health professionals?

The majority of psychiatrists, psychologists and other mental health professionals “go along to get along” and maintain a status quo that includes drug company corruption, pseudoscientific research and a “standard of care” that is routinely damaging and occasionally kills young children. If that sounds hyperbolic, then you probably have not heard of Rebecca Riley, and how the highest levels of psychiatry described her treatment as “appropriate and within responsible professional standards.”

When Rebecca Riley was 28 months old, based primarily on the complaints of her mother that she was “hyper” and had difficulty sleeping, psychiatrist Kayoko Kifuji, at the Tufts-New England Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts, diagnosed Rebecca with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Kifuji prescribed clonidine, a hypertensive drug with significant sedating properties, a drug Kifuji also prescribed to Rebecca’s older sister and brother. The goal of the Riley parents—obvious to many in their community and later to juries—was to attain psychiatric diagnoses for their children that would qualify them for disability payments and to sedate their children making them easy to manage

At the age of four, Rebecca was dead.

At the time of her death, Rebecca had a life-threatening amount of clonidine—enough to kill her—in her body, according to the former director of the Massachusetts toxicology lab and the medical director of a regional poison control center. The medical examiner who performed the autopsy concluded that Rebecca died from intoxication of clonidine, Depakote and two over-the-counter cold and cough medicines that led to heart failure, lungs filled with bloody fluid, coma, and then death. Rebecca’s abusive parents went to prison for the over-drugging that led to their daughter’s death.

Kifuji’s fate? The psychiatric establishment rallied around Kifuji, enabling her to return to Tufts Medical Center practicing child psychiatry without any restrictions, penalties or supervision.

[cbayer]

1. At a time when there is a gross shortage of mental health professionals and a great

need among the populace, particularly for veterans and those harmed most by the economic downturns, this kind of inflammatory rhetoric and broadbrush generalizations that attack the "mental health industry" are shameful.

Is there room to criticize? Certainly. Is there room for improvement? Absolutely. Are there some unqualified people providing care? Yes, just like in any other field of medicine.

Anyway, I hope readers will consider the source and examine the possible motivations of this writer, then come to their own conclusions.

[Newest Reality]

5. The focus there is

the reliance on medications as the means.

There are good reasons to emphasize the problem with a medication-based approach when various kinds of talk therapy and empathy and compassion are missing. Medication is a band-aid that does not address the underlying problems and context for the patient.

There is plenty of research that addresses the long-term side-effects, (some extremely disabling) and additional problems created by withdrawal from psychiatric medicines. I would recommend Toxic Psychiatry. By Peter R. Breggin MD.

The profit motive is at issue here, but from Pharmaceutical companies and Doctors who can see more patients by avoiding long therapy sessions.

Yes, there are some good folks out there, but the current paradigm is pathetic and even proving to be harmful in many ways.

[cbayer]

11. You bring up some good points and I would only add that this is a very complex issue.

The best studies I have seen show that the best results (in general) are achieved when medication and therapy are used together.

There are also some psychiatric illnesses for which the underlying neurological issues have been better defined, and for many of these patients there are no significant underlying issues requiring therapy (like true Bipolar disorder). OTOH, there are clearly consequences of the illness that would benefit from therapy.

Absolutely agree about the profit motive with pharmaceutical companies. Do not really agree about physicians, though. Insurance has made it pretty much impossible for physicians to provide therapy. Even Medicare imposes higher copays and number of visit limitations that people with other kinds of illnesses are not subject to. This has greatly impacted the ability of all kinds of mental health professionals to provide therapy.

While I agree that medications are often over used and that the side effects can be profound, I think that the more we can define some psychiatric conditions as biologically based, the less marginalization and prejudice there will be against people that are stricken with these illnesses.

[Newest Reality]

13. Thanks!

I agree and appreciate more views and discussion about this topic. I think additions to it are helpful.

A balanced approach is important. When a patient is freaking-out and needs to be brought into a place where therapy can start, then meds are very useful. They can be a bridge for anyone who is suffering from server symptoms.

Too often, I meet people who are told, or allowed, to take psychoactive medications for the long-term or even with the expectation that they will be lifers.

That's a failure, to me, on the part of the establishment and doing no harm is important, as well. We can all find the studies out there and so, I will not cite them, yet comparisons of GOOD therapy in contrast with medication-only approaches shows real and lasting results and it is about healing from the illness, in that case. Of course, each case can be different.

Toxic Psychiatry explores many of the reasons that therapy is being put on the side-burner or even ignored altogether. There are more than pharmaceuticals involved here. It does take more than labels and education for a person to successfully counsel another and the book talks about that and alternatives, as well.

[Confusious]

14. I'm a lifer

My 20's were an almost complete waste due to depression and obsessive compulsive.

I don't want to be mean in saying this, but it seems to me there a COMPLETE lack of understanding on some people's part. Some want to push their natural cures, which BTW didn't really do shit for me, and just act like they care. Others just don't like the profession or the drug industry, so they're more then willing to hang me out to dry.

As far as this story, anyone prescibed a med could overdose on that med. Are we going to go into everyone's home that has a prescription and make sure they're using it right.

There is overprescribing, but there are also people going into the doctors after seeing these commercials on TV and demanding the pills because they think it will make them happy.

Mine don't make me happy, they get me to the point I can BE happy. It's up to to me to make myself happy.

[Warpy]

2. This article is a hit piece by an ignoramus

It was not the fault of the pediatric psychiatrist that this child's parents overdosed her on multiple medications with additive sedative effects.

The idiot who wrote this article strikes me as the type of idiot who tells schizophrenics to snap out of it.

Yeah, that's a big help, Bruce. I'm sure they appreciate the advice and it cures them immediately.

[Mosby]

6. The author is a clinical psychologist

http://brucelevine.net/bruce-levine-bio/

[Warpy]

9. But not a psychiatrist

[moriah]

15. It was irresponsible to prescribe Seroquel and Depakote to a three year old along with clonidine.

Honestly, I think diagnosing a 3 year old with bipolar disorder is nuts.

But clonidine is not approved to treat children under six, Seroquel is not approved for use in patients under age 10, and while Depakote has been used in children, it also requires routine bloodwork to ensure levels are appropriate. So if the doctor had been responsible, he would have seen that the parents were ODing the kid from the bloodwork.

[Warpy]

16. You're right, the doc dropped the ball

but it was ultimately the parents who poisoned the poor kid.

[Mosby]

3. The Epidemic of Mental Illness: Why?

snip

These are the questions, among others, that concern the authors of the three provocative books under review here. They come at the questions from different backgrounds—Irving Kirsch is a psychologist at the University of Hull in the UK, Robert Whitaker a journalist and previously the author of a history of the treatment of mental illness called Mad in America (2001), and Daniel Carlat a psychiatrist who practices in a Boston suburb and publishes a newsletter and blog about his profession.

The authors emphasize different aspects of the epidemic of mental illness. Kirsch is concerned with whether antidepressants work. Whitaker, who has written an angrier book, takes on the entire spectrum of mental illness and asks whether psychoactive drugs create worse problems than they solve. Carlat, who writes more in sorrow than in anger, looks mainly at how his profession has allied itself with, and is manipulated by, the pharmaceutical industry. But despite their differences, all three are in remarkable agreement on some important matters, and they have documented their views well.

First, they agree on the disturbing extent to which the companies that sell psychoactive drugs—through various forms of marketing, both legal and illegal, and what many people would describe as bribery—have come to determine what constitutes a mental illness and how the disorders should be diagnosed and treated. This is a subject to which I’ll return.

Second, none of the three authors subscribes to the popular theory that mental illness is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain. As Whitaker tells the story, that theory had its genesis shortly after psychoactive drugs were introduced in the 1950s. The first was Thorazine (chlorpromazine), which was launched in 1954 as a “major tranquilizer” and quickly found widespread use in mental hospitals to calm psychotic patients, mainly those with schizophrenia. Thorazine was followed the next year by Miltown (meprobamate), sold as a “minor tranquilizer” to treat anxiety in outpatients. And in 1957, Marsilid (iproniazid) came on the market as a “psychic energizer” to treat depression.

snip

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/jun/23/epidemic-mental-illness-why/?page=1

[WingDinger]

8. Dear God, they are headed for male enhancement. That is the end of the line.

A general disadvantage of SSRIs in treating premature ejaculation is that they require continuous daily treatment to delay ejaculation significantly.[6] For the occasional "on-demand" treatment, a few hours before coitus, clomipramine gave better results than paroxetine in one study


Could we afford to give them away, if they werent effective? millions of men have enjoyed our sexual advantages. Order your free month supply today. Dont be left out. But hurry, supplies are limited.

[WingDinger]

4. After being hit and run on a bicycle, and sustaining injuries that required an operation I couldnt a

afford, I took Paxil. After two weeks, I was no longer me. I almost killed about thirty people in Baja Fresh. So, I spent two weeks at the beach, meditating, and reading Depoch Chopra. I thought I would never return. Went off them cold turkey.

I didnt really almost kill them, but felt myself desiring it. SSRI drugs were invented to do away with couch type therapy. Instead popping pills, and paying for a simple prescription by insurance.

Coincidently, making many percent of persons blackballed for life from personal and some corp. health ins. Win Win.

[WingDinger]

7. Not to mention the very real eventuality that you develop Tardive dyskinesia.

[cbayer]

12. SSRI's are not without side effects, but tardive dyskinesia is not one of them.

TD was a significant problem with the older anti-psychotics. There has been a marked decrease (but not elimination) of this horrible side effect since the introduction of the newer anti-psychotics.

[kittykat83]

18. tardive dyskinesia

I'd dispute that tardive dyskinesia isn't one of the side effects of SSRIs, or at least in my case - I wasn't on any other kind of medication, and after 3 months on Fluox when I began to reduce my dose to come off it, I spent 4 days chewing my tongue off so much that I had to take time off work, couldn't sleep, etc. No other symptoms that could be attributed to anything like SSRI discontinuation, but that one absolutely floored me - tongue was so sore, chewing my cheeks and tongue so badly it was ridiculous

Ended up fixing it up by drinking wild lettuce tea, which I've been keeping up even after as it's quite a relaxant/sedative in itself and has really helped me stabilize my moods (Fluox didn't seem to do much for me during those 3 months and was giving me terrible insomnia - after the epic tongue-chewing, I'm reluctant to go on any other anti-depressants unless I get to a really bad stage). It's a shame there's not more testing done on herbal remedies, though - I know there's been the (albeit extremely rare, but sometimes even fatal) side effect from wild lettuce, and at least with anti-depressants there's less likely to be any epic surprises

[moriah]

10. Psychatric medication, when it's NEEDED, is very needed indeed.

Anyone who doubts that likely doesn't have a relative with bipolar disorder or schizophrenia.

But I'm sorry, diagnosing a three year old with ADD and bipolar disorder, and giving a three year old Seroquel and Depakote along with the clonidine, is batshit insane and the shrink really ought to have their licenses examined.

[my2sense]

17. I have an elderly aunt

that was put on seroquel after she'd had her hip repaired from a fall due to disorientation. She was NOT psychotic yet they gave her this powerful drug instead of a milder sedative. It seems some of these drugs are being used for other things. I also know someone who takes seroquel as a sleep aid.